Jie quan da dong kau (1978)

User Rating:

2.6/10   

Director:

To Lo Po

Genre:

Action | Drama

Tagline:

Masters in the art of sudden death

Plot Keywords:

Wounded Leg | Fighting | Martial Arts | Character Name In Title

Cast

Dragon Lee	...	Dragon
Lik Cheung		(as Jacky Chang)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yu-haeng Kim
Ying-Hung Lau
Fa Yuan Li
Ni Liu
Yaokun Pan
Chin Bo Sham
Wei Ho Tu
Bolo Yeung	...	Tan Yin (as Yung Sze)

Also Known As:

Big Boss II (UK) (DVD title) (USA) (video title)
Bruce Lee Fights Again
Chinese Goliath (USA) (video title)
Muscle of the Dragon (USA) (dubbed version)

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Watch This If You Like Dragon , Bolo or Really Bad Camera-work.....

Firstly, a little history lesson - despite the title, 'Big Boss 2' is actually completely unconnected to the legendary Bruce Lee film 'The Big Boss'. That honour goes to another film entitled... yes, you guessed it, 'Big Boss 2'. So there are actually two films with the title 'Big Boss 2' - one an actual sequel, the other a completely unrelated film starring a Bruce Lee lookalike and renamed by shrewd American distributors to cash in on the Bruce Lee craze which was sweeping the U.S. That films - this films - original title was 'Dragon Lee Fights Again'.

The storyline is really nothing to write home about but, in a nutshell, it concerns a young member of the Chinese resistance (played with his usual level of intensity by Dragon Lee) and his fight against the brutal Japanese, led by the great Bolo Yeung.

I really didn't like this film, so to describe its plot in more detail is not a task i wish to undertake, suffice to say it was the usual Chinese are great/ Japanese are evil type thing that was churned out in its hundreds during the'70s.

There isn't really much to recommend this film - besides the dreary storyline, the camera-work is an absolute joke - that may seem harsh, but it gets frustrating watching a film where virtually every single frame is off-centre, where all you can see of the person talking is his left ear, and where dramatic sequences are utterly ruined by the fact that the only thing on screen besides a flurry of movement at the edges, is a bush, a bit of sky or a nice decorative pot in the background. For a film that relies so heavily on its action, the terrible direction was the real killer for me.

However, the film is not without hope. And that hope comes in the rippling forms of Dragon Lee and Bolo Yeung. Dragon Lee is a handsome, highly-skilled, charismatic martial artist and for my money was the best of the Bruce Lee clones that appeared in the '70s. Both in his looks and mannerisms, as well as his skill, Dragon Lee, for me, is like Bruce Lee reborn. Although his fight scenes are relatively few, they are the best thing about this film. Dragons speed, flexibility and agility make him a formidable screen fighter.

And Bolo Yeung. Well, the guys just a legend, isn't he? Despite sporting a silly little Hitler 'tache, he's just as brutal, massive and downright evil here as ever! Dragon Lee and Bolo Yeung really are the only two reasons to watch this film. It is a real shame their climactic battle wasn't better, as seeing these two Hong Kong legends battling it out almost made me feel justified in the 80 minutes of my life i'd just wasted. Almost..